Detective: Girl said she held air rifle

Tuesday

Sep 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 29, 2009 at 12:15 PM

A girl shot by Columbus police in front of a North Side carryout in June 2008 made comments to an investigator that conflict with her later statement that she never handled the air rifle found at the scene.

A girl shot by Columbus police in front of a North Side carryout in June 2008 made comments to an investigator that conflict with her later statement that she never handled the air rifle found at the scene.

When homicide detective Anne Pennington visited Regina Jennings in the hospital a few hours after the shooting, the girl said "that she had found a BB gun, picked it up and wrapped it in a 'cover,'" Pennington wrote. "Ms. Jennings continued, she was about to have her boyfriend call police (to report the find) when they 'rolled up and shot her.'"

That information and other details surrounding the shooting of Jennings are in documents just released by the Police Division.

Jennings, now 17, was 16 when Officer Adam Hicks shot her twice late on June 18, 2008. She has recovered, and the internal review by police cleared Hicks of any wrongdoing.

In his statement, Hicks said he and Officer James Howe arrived on the lot of the Express Market Drive-Thru on E. 5th Avenue just before midnight and saw Jennings acting suspiciously in front of the market. She was holding what he determined was a gun partly wrapped in a blanket, with a pit bull near her.

Hicks told Howe, "She's got a gun" and got out of the cruiser's driver's seat. He said that when he ordered Jennings to drop the gun, she lowered her head and angled the gun's barrel toward the ground.

"Just as the tip of the barrel got close to the ground, the female raised back up glancing at me and also raising the barrel of the gun," Hicks said. "As the barrel of the rifle started to come up and swing outward in my direction, I believed that the suspect was going to fire the rifle at me, and I fired my gun at the suspect."

Howe said that after Jennings was shot, once in each arm, she said something along the lines of "Why did you shoot me? I was getting ready to put it down or drop it."

A man on a nearby porch said he heard Hicks screaming repeated commands at Jennings before the shots were fired. The neighbor "related he is deaf in his right ear but could plainly hear the officer yelling and instructing the female to drop it and put her hands up several times because the officer was yelling very loudly," the police findings state.

After police decided they would not file charges against Jennings, her attorneys, Eric L. LaFayette and Byron L. Potts, called a news conference on June 25 this year to announce the lawsuit, in which they say Jennings was not holding the rifle and was shot after she put her hands in the air.

That's the account Jennings herself has given since the shooting.

But in the three months since the lawsuit was filed, the complaint has sat in federal court with no further action.

City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. said Jennings' attorneys never served the city with a copy of the complaint, and federal court documents also don't reflect any record of service.

Because that never happened, "We have no need to do anything right now," Pfeiffer said.

At their home on the Near East Side on Friday, Jennings and her mother, Patricia, referred all questions to their attorneys, including whether they are still pursuing the lawsuit. Potts and LaFayette did not return phone calls.

Jennings was at the carryout that night with her boyfriend, Michael Jackson, who police said appeared in surveillance video to be casing the store for a robbery while Jennings remained outside with the air rifle. Jackson, 22, of E. 4th Avenue, came out of the store after Jennings was shot, told the officers it was a BB gun and took control of the dog when they asked him to.

Animal Control later took the dog.

Jackson is scheduled to stand trial in Franklin County Municipal Court on Wednesday on misdemeanor charges of falsification and obstructing official business. Police said he misled them during the investigation.

Many of Jackson's statements in the Jennings probe were redacted by police because his criminal case is pending. But at one point, he told police that Patricia Jennings "has been talking about how much money they were going to get because of the shooting," the report states. "Patricia Jennings believes that they will get anywhere from $50,000 to $50,000,000 and that she talks about how they will spend the money."

The suit seeks more than $3 million.

tdecker@dispatch.com

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.